Leaving Bondi

by Robert G. Barrett

  ‘Do these look all right?’ Les flashed a roll of hundred-dollar bills.

  Brett looked at them and his thin mouth filled with saliva. ‘They sure do, mate.’

  ‘How about making me a flat white with two sugars. And I’ll see you on one of those seats in the mall.’

  ‘I’ll be there in two minutes.’

  Les walked up to the mall, found a wire seat, then sat down and made himself comfortable. Brett was along shortly with a carton of coffee and a can of Coke. He handed Les his coffee and sat down next to him. Les offered his hand.

  ‘I’m Les.’

  Brett nodded and shook Norton’s hand. ‘Les Norton. I’ve seen you around.’

  ‘I live in Bondi. And I work up the Cross.’

  ‘The Kelly Club. Price Galese.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  Brett took a mouthful of Coke and smiled. ‘So Les. I imagine this is about the unfortunate demise of Albert Knox.’

  ‘You’re right on the ball, Brett.’ Les smiled back, then tucked a hundred-dollar bill into the top of Brett’s apron. ‘And you can have that for starters.’

  ‘Thanks. That’ll come in handy, I can tell you.’

  Les removed the top of his carton and took a sip. The coffee was surprisingly good. ‘All right, Brett, I’ll get straight to the point. You were partners in a restaurant with Albert Knox. Tell me all about him. Anything.’

  Brett looked directly at Les. ‘He was a cunt. How’s that for starters?’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Les.

  ‘He ripped people off. Dope dealers. Women. Old ladies. Me. Anybody.’ Brett shook his head. ‘Somehow he managed to keep getting away with it. Up until now.’

  ‘What did he do with all the money?’

  ‘Shoved most of it up his nose.’

  ‘Into the sentimental bloke, eh. That figures. Was he dealing?’

  Brett nodded over his can of Coca-Cola. ‘Yeah. Not in a big way. Mainly to feed his habit.’

  ‘Did he have many friends?’

  ‘Friends? I’ll put it this way, Les, I wouldn’t like to be selling sausage sandwiches at his funeral.’ Brett swallowed some more Coke. ‘He used to hang with some strange people, though. Sort of heavy. In a weird kind of way.’

  ‘What? Dope dealers?’

  ‘Probably. But weird.’

  ‘Gays?’ said Les. ‘I heard Albert sat on both sides of the fence.’

  Brett laughed. ‘Albert’d be in anything. No. These people were into Wicca.’

  ‘Wicca? What the fuck’s that?’

  ‘Witchcraft. Spells, rituals, all that sort of shit.’

  ‘Albert of the occult,’ said Les, taking another mouthful of coffee. ‘The plot certainly thickens.’

  ‘He had a place in the Blue Mountains. He used to go there and write poetry and stuff. I went up there a couple of times. But he’d never let me stay overnight. Or have a good look round the house. I thought that was a bit odd, seeing I was his business partner.’

  ‘Whereabouts in the Blue Mountains, Brett? Do you know the address?’

  Brett shook his head. ‘I can’t remember. But it was in Medlow Bath and it had a red gate. And a blue letter box. And there was a big red gum out the front, too.’

  ‘When you say had a place in the Blue Mountains, has he still got it?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ replied Brett. ‘He’d never let that go. He has people stay there while he’s in Sydney. You know, boarders, some of his weird friends, whatever.’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  Brett finished his Coca-Cola about the same time Les drained his coffee.

  ‘Well, Les, there’s not much more I can tell you,’ said Brett. ‘And I’d better get back to the kiosk. Michalina only knows about five words of English.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Les, getting to his feet. ‘You’ve been a big help though. Here.’ Les stuck another two hundred dollars in Brett’s apron.

  ‘Shit! Thanks for that, Les.’ Brett offered his hand again. ‘If there’s anything else I can do. You know where to find me.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks, Brett.’

  ‘Call in anyway. I’ll shout you a coffee.’

  ‘I might do that, Brett. It’s bloody good coffee.’ Les turned to walk away. ‘Hey Brett. One more thing?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Where was Albert from? Sydney?’

  Brett shook his head. ‘Adelaide.’

  Les watched Brett walk back to the kiosk, then dropped his empty coffee carton in a garbage bin. He bought the morning paper and headed for Bondi.

  Back home, Les had a glass of water and flicked through the paper. The first three pages were headlined BOMB OUTRAGE AT SCHOOL. KILLING ON FILM SET. TEN PEOPLE INJURED. Here we go, thought Les. But it could have been worse.

  The photo of him being driven into Waverley Police Station gave nothing away. He’d managed to get his jacket up over his head, so they could have had Elvis in the car for all anybody would have known. And apart from Knox’s assistant, the injuries weren’t too bad and some of the film crew were probably hitting the workers’ compensation trail, seeing that the film shoot was finished. Plus they had him down as Les Norton, a waiter from Kings Cross. That old sergeant was right, mused Les, going over it again before flicking to the sports pages. You definitely don’t have to be a brain surgeon to get a job on a newspaper. Les was reading about a disappearing prima donna rugby league player when the doorbell rang. It was Eddie.

  ‘Shit, Les. What can I say, mate?’ Eddie waved his newspaper around as Les closed the front door and they walked down to the kitchen.

  ‘We’ve managed to make the headlines again, Eddie,’ said Les. ‘It could be worse, though. At least I’m Les, the inoffensive waiter. Not Les, the thug gangster doorman.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s still a fuckin heavy pinch they’ve got you on, mate.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Les. ‘It sure is. And if I said I wasn’t worried, I’d be a liar. And a dill.’

  Les told Eddie everything that happened. From the bomb going off. Cleaning out the house. To the police coming round and charging him. Then what Ray Tracy had told him and his meeting with Brett Rittosa earlier.

  ‘So it looks like our mate the cook was a shifty no-good prick,’ said Les. ‘You almost had to queue up to hate him.’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘I wish we’d never gone near that silly fuckin film set.’

  ‘You and me both, mate,’ agreed Les. ‘What about you, Eddie? Have you found out anything?’

  ‘No. I didn’t get back home till late last night. And I only got up a while ago. But George’ll be ringing you soon. Evidently he’s on to something.’

  At that instant the phone rang in the lounge room.

  ‘This’ll be him now,’ said Eddie.

  It was Billy Dunne. ‘Les, how are you, mate? You okay?’

  ‘As good as I can be under the circumstances, thanks Billy,’ answered Les.

  ‘Eddie told me what’s happened. Fuckin hell! I can’t believe this.’

  ‘It’s true, Billy. Eddie’s here now. Have you got this morning’s paper?’

  ‘Yeah. At least you can’t see your head. But everybody around the traps is going to know who it is.’

  ‘Yeah,’ admitted Les. ‘Great, ain’t it.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Price and we’re all on the case. I’ve got Big Danny to fill in for you at work.’

  ‘Thanks, Billy.’

  ‘And I reckon you should be sweet on Monday.’

  Despite his workmate’s effort, Les didn’t detect a great deal of confidence in Billy’s voice. ‘Yeah. We’ll see what happens, mate.’

  ‘Look, I’ll leave you with Eddie. And I’ll call round this afternoon. You be home?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Okay. Well, I’ll see you then. Take care, mate.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks Billy.’ Les hung up and walked back into the kitchen. ‘That was Billy. He’s going to call over this afternoon.’

  Eddie nodded. ‘I rang him earlier.’


  Les was going to say something when the phone rang again. ‘This might be George.’ It was.

  ‘Hello Les. How are you goin’, mate?’

  ‘I’m hanging in, George,’ replied Les. ‘Hangin’ in.’

  ‘Good on you, son.’ Les and George might have constantly bagged and poked shit at each other at work, but when it came down to business, that was all forgotten. ‘Price told me what’s going on, Les. I can’t believe your bad luck.’

  ‘I suppose you saw the papers this morning, George?’ said Les.

  ‘Yeah, the pricks. At least they didn’t get a decent photo of you. And I always said you’d make a good waiter.’

  ‘Thanks George,’ laughed Les.

  ‘Okay. I’ll tell you what’s going on. Evidently they love a bit of scandal and rumour, the show biz mob, and while he was hanging around that movie set, Kevin picked up a bit of gossip.’

  ‘Go on, George.’

  ‘That cook who got blown up. His name’s Albert Knox. He was a small-time coke dealer.’

  ‘I already knew that.’

  ‘He’d also been in a bit of strife with the law,’ said George.

  ‘Dealing dope?’

  ‘No. You remember about a year ago, a bloke got murdered in the Blue Mountains and they found his body on a walking trail? He was a barrister, had a wife and kids. And it turned out he was a mad raving poof on the side.’

  ‘Vaguely, George.’

  ‘Well, they never found the murderer. But Knox had tried to blackmail the barrister. He was going to out him and a couple of his mates. The cops charged Knox with extortion, but between the bloke getting himself murdered and whatever, Knox beat it.’

  ‘Yeah. According to a bloke I’ve been talking to, Knox was a bit of a shifty,’ said Les. ‘Something like that’d be right up his alley.’

  ‘There was also this old bird in the Blue Mountains,’ continued George. ‘Kicked the bucket and left all this money and real estate in a disputed will. Knox was half pie pally with the old girl and forged her name on a letter giving him part of the estate. He got sprung. But somehow or other he beat that, too. So besides being one step in front of the gendarmes, Knox had quite a few people offside.’

  ‘Christ! You’d think those two coppers’d know all this,’ said Les.

  ‘They probably do,’ replied George. ‘But unfortunately they’ve got your head on the block, Les.’

  ‘Yeah. Terrific.’

  ‘Anyway, Kevin’s calling over this afternoon. He might’ve found out something else. And me and Price have got our ears to the ground.’

  ‘That’s good. Well, thanks for your help, George. I’ll keep in touch.’

  ‘No worries. Look after yourself, big fellah.’

  Les hung up and walked back into the kitchen. ‘George’s nephew found out a couple of interesting things.’ Les told Eddie what George had said over the phone.

  ‘Fuck. It looks like our mate Knox barred nothing when it came to hustling a quid,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Les. ‘He’d steal the filling off a shit sandwich and leave you with the dry bread.’

  Les and Eddie sat silently staring into space for a while before Eddie spoke.

  ‘Well, what do you think, Les?’ he asked.

  ‘What do I think?’ shrugged Les. ‘I’m fucked if I know, Eddie. Anybody could have murdered that prick Knox. Coke dealers he’d ripped off. People he’d tried to blackmail. That old girl’s relatives in case he’s still disputing the will. His ex-partner in the restaurant. Witches, warlocks, whatever.’

  ‘Not counting punters who didn’t like his nouveau cuisine,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Yeah. I forgot about them too,’ said Les. ‘Christ! It’s a cast of thousands.’

  ‘So what are we going to do?’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Les looked at Eddie for a moment. ‘I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to take a trip to the the Blue Mountains.’

  ‘The Blue Mountains? What the fuck do you want to go there for?’

  ‘I’m going to see if I can find Knox’s house. There’s definitely a Blue Mountains connection to this, Eddie. And if I can get into his house, I reckon I might find a clue.’

  ‘Clue?’ said Eddie. ‘Turn it up, Les. Who do you think you are? Cliff Hardy?’

  ‘Well, I may as well be sniffing around up there, Eddie, as walking around Bondi with every cunt pointing at me behind my back and saying, look, there’s the bloke that set the bomb off on the film set.’

  ‘Yeah. I suppose you’ve got a point,’ agreed Eddie.

  ‘I know I’ve got nothing to lose,’ said Les. ‘I can punch the bundy at Waverley Police Station on the way up. Stay the night. And be back in time to bundy on again Thursday. And you can keep sniffing around down here.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ agreed Eddie. ‘When are you going to leave?’

  Les looked at his watch. ‘By the time I root around here and pack my swag, a couple of hours. I’ll get there in time for a late lunch.’

  ‘You know where you’re gonna stay?’

  ‘Haven’t the foggiest,’ shrugged Les. ‘First decent hotel I come to in Medlow Bath, I suppose.’

  Eddie gave Les a look of grudging approval and got to his feet. ‘All right. Well, I’ll get cracking and see what I can dig up. And I’ll see you when you get back. If you need me, give me a call. I’ll be straight up.’

  ‘Thanks mate. I will.’

  Les saw Eddie to the door, waved him off, then walked back out the kitchen. He made a cup of coffee and as he was sipping it thought of something the Gull had told him earlier. Les looked at his watch again. Yeah. She’d be at work now, for sure. He took his coffee into the lounge room and picked up the phone.

  ‘Geraldine Hardacre, accountant.’

  ‘Hello Gerry. It’s Les Norton.’

  ‘Les?’ replied his accountant. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh. Okay Gerry, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s not you in this morning’s paper is it, Les? Surely?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s me all right,’ admitted Les.

  ‘Good lord! What’s the world coming to?’

  ‘Well I can tell you now, Gerry, it’s not what it seems.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. I know you’re a pretty willing lot at the Kelly Club, but I didn’t think you went around blowing up movie sets.’

  ‘We don’t. Especially after one of us has shoved fifty grand into the bloody thing.’

  ‘Yes. That could be looking a bit shaky at this stage. I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Great,’ said Les. ‘Anyway, that’s the least of my worries at the moment, Gerry. I’m wondering if you could do me a favour?’

  ‘I’ll certainly do what I can, Les.’

  ‘Could you ring Ivor and find out if anybody’s taken any … any special sort of an insurance policy out on that movie?’

  ‘I can do that for you, Les. He’s busy this morning. But if you ring me back late this afternoon he should know something. Say about four-thirty.’

  ‘Thanks, Gerry. I’ll ring you then.’

  ‘Bye Les.’

  Les hung up, sipped his coffee and looked at the phone, shaking his head. That’s something else we didn’t think of. An insurance scam. Add that to the list of suspects. Christ! Forget Cliff Hardy. This is more like Agatha fuckin Christie. Les took his coffee back out to the kitchen and glanced at his photo on the front page of the paper again. Then another thought struck him, giving the big red-headed Queenslander even less joy. Somewhere out there, someone who couldn’t believe their luck was having a good laugh at his expense. They didn’t even need any luck. All they had to do was hang in and by Monday they were home and hosed. Les threw the paper in the garbage, finished his coffee and started packing for a quick trip to the Blue Mountains. I wonder what the weather’s going to be like up there, he mused. Les had a look out the front window. The sou’wester had picked up and it was starting to rain. Cold and wet. Better toss in my GAP anorak. An hour later Les h
ad packed everything he thought he’d need from warm socks to a pair of binoculars and a torch. He locked the house, wished himself luck and drove up to Waverley Police Station.

  Signing his report card was pretty much a formality. There were no journalists or TV cameras around and Les was more than likely just one of a host of villains forced to report when told. A grizzled desk sergeant processed him and as soon as he got that out of the way, Les headed for Parramatta Road and the M4, stopping briefly at Camperdown to fill up with petrol.

  The rain increased and so did the traffic along Parramatta Road till eventually Les found the entrance to the M4 at Strathfield. He still wasn’t too sure where he was going. According to his roadmap, get to the other side of Penrith and climb west. A set of tollgates appeared out of the gloom. Les couldn’t see how much it was, so he impatiently flung whatever change he had in the basket and quickly wound the window up. The light turned green and he continued on his way to the steady beat of the windscreen wipers and the rain hitting the roof. The traffic was slow and heavy. Trucks and prime movers hissed by leaving plumes of road water in their wake and every vehicle had its headlights on. Another truck went past spraying water everywhere as the FM station quietly playing in Norton’s Berlina pumped out another pop record.

  Les caught his eye in the rear-vision mirror and shook his head. You know what I am, he told himself. An idiot. A complete bloody idiot. I’m driving somewhere in the pissing rain, to find a house with a red fence and a blue letter box. With a fuckin gum tree out the front. Then if by some remote chance I happen to find it, what do I do? Knock on the door and say hello, do you mind if I take a stroll around, I’m looking for some evidence in a murder. Unbelievable. The traffic ground on and the radio played another pop song. Ahh fuck it, thought Les, as he crossed the Nepean River. I may as well have some ad-free music on my road to nowhere. He slipped a tape into the cassette and Dutch Tilders and The Blues Club started hoofing into ‘Bad Books’. By the time this cut into ‘Long Way From Brooklyn — Down to the Bone’, Les had gone under Knapsack Bridge and was approaching Blaxland.

  At Faulconbridge the fog got thicker and if Les wasn’t driving slow enough already, the council was doing up the road. All he could make out in the way of scenery was trees, a few churches and old houses with cars for sale parked out the front. At Hazelbrook Les got stuck behind a tour bus, then when he reached Lawson the fog set in like a monstrous grey blanket over everything and he got stuck behind a petrol tanker. Les shook his head in disgust. What did George say up the club one night? If brains were ink, I wouldn’t have enough to write a full stop. He’s not wrong. You would have got up here faster in a horse and buggy a hundred years ago.